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        general >> truth >> Fate -- Fact or Fiction?
        
(Message started by: John_Gaughan on Nov 16th, 2004, 11:26am)
Title: Fate -- Fact or Fiction?
Post by John_Gaughan on Nov 16th, 2004, 11:26am
I am curious what y'all think about fate. Are we able to choose our own destinies? Why or why not, and is this provable? I am not interested in opinions, I am more interested in approaching this question from an objective, scientific viewpoint.

For example: computer science involves the concept of a finite state machine. Even when there are a lot of states, the output largely depends on the input. Can the computer really choose its actions? Well, given the same input, it must choose the same path of execution, so the computer cannot really choose. The programmer already chose for it. The only real way to introduce chance into such a machine is through outside entropy, be it a clock tick or voltage fluctuations used to generate (pseudo) random numbers. Is the machine fated to perform the same action every time?

Some criminals claim that they cannot control their behavior. No matter how much they resist, they must commit crimes. This implies that fate forces them into a path and no amount of free will allows them to deviate from this path. Some movies toy with this idea. The first example that pops in my head is The Time Machine. The main character's fiancee is murdered in the park, and each time he goes back in time to change what happened, something else bad happens. According to that story, fate preordained that she would die that evening no matter what he did.

Another idea is about entropy. Stephen Hawking touches on this when he talks about the Big Bang. Everything in the universe is there, all the matter, all the energy, and the question is whether the fate of the universe is determined at that point. Can the universe change from its path? Is there any true randomness to how the universe takes shape, or is its path preset?
Title: Re: Fate -- Fact or Fiction?
Post by towr on Nov 16th, 2004, 2:12pm

on 11/16/04 at 11:26:20, John_Gaughan wrote:
I am curious what y'all think about fate. Are we able to choose our own destinies? Why or why not, and is this provable? I am not interested in opinions, I am more interested in approaching this question from an objective, scientific viewpoint.
I don't think emperical sciences will have much to say on the matter. Either way, let's start with the necessary philosophical question, how do you define 'fate' and 'destiny'; what are we talking about?


Quote:
For example: computer science involves the concept of a finite state machine. Even when there are a lot of states, the output largely depends on the input.
I disagree, once set up, a computer can continue almost indefinitely without input, yet keep giving distinct output (you can f.i. start with a simple chaotic function)


Quote:
Can the computer really choose its actions?
Define choose.
It can make choose an execution branch based on a conditional statement, if that's what you mean.


Quote:
Well, given the same input, it must choose the same path of execution, so the computer cannot really choose.
IT can also 'choose' depending on internal states, not necessarily input.


Quote:
The programmer already chose for it.
Explicitly, or implicitly? Even in normal programming computers often behave different from how the programmer(s) had invisioned, let alone when it uses a learning algorithm (f.i. neural network or genetic algorithm)


Quote:
The only real way to introduce chance into such a machine is through outside entropy,
Is outside entropy truely random? Is deterministic chaos not random enough?


Quote:
Some criminals claim that they cannot control their behavior. No matter how much they resist, they must commit crimes. This implies that fate forces them into a path and no amount of free will allows them to deviate from this path.
I disagree that fate (necessarily) does so. IT is not an outside force that makes them act thusly, it's (if anything) an inner, mental disorder. It may deprive them of free will, but it needen't be fate (however defined) that does so.


Quote:
Some movies toy with this idea. The first example that pops in my head is The Time Machine. The main character's fiancee is murdered in the park, and each time he goes back in time to change what happened, something else bad happens. According to that story, fate preordained that she would die that evening no matter what he did.
Then fate probably also preordained he'd try and change it, and fail repeatedly.
Fate doesn't seem to mean much, just that everything is and will be how it must be, regardless of how it will be. Going left, or right, might equally well be fate. There is neither a way to tell afterwards, nor beforehand.


Quote:
Another idea is about entropy. Stephen Hawking touches on this when he talks about the Big Bang. Everything in the universe is there, all the matter, all the energy, and the question is whether the fate of the universe is determined at that point. Can the universe change from its path? Is there any true randomness to how the universe takes shape, or is its path preset?
Define 'the path of the universe' and 'true randomness'.
Quantum mechanics seems to suggest that things are not deterministic. But even stochastic processes may at the end give 100% probability of the same event.
Fate could work on a level of 'paths', or 'destinations' (like that fiancee dying each time), or possibly other things.

This is not an easy topic to speak about, least of all if you want more than mere opinions. Like I said at the start, we should begin with clarifying/defining what we're talking about. Sure, we all have some intuition about what the words mean, but the meanings are anything but clear.
Title: Re: Fate -- Fact or Fiction?
Post by Icarus on Nov 16th, 2004, 3:32pm
The closest I see science as having approached this problem is the related question of determinism. According to Newtonian physics, the behavior of an isolated physical system is completely determined by its initial state. Before Quantum mechanics was discovered, the only source for randomness was in thermodynamic behavior, and there it was understood as simply the result of "hidden variables". I.e., if you knew everything there was to know about a thermodynamic system (including the positions and momenta of all the particles in it), you could completely predict its behavior, but in fact most of the information is not easily measurable, and the apparent variant behavior is just the result of the unknown initial values of these unmeasurable quantities.

When QM was discovered, with its intrinsically probabilistic nature, the question arose: Is this actual randomness, or is it once again just caused by hidden quantities whose values we are not able to measure. Einstein was a major proponent of the hidden variables concept (thus his remark that "God does not play dice with the universe"). Considerable thought went into this question, and some very clever tests were developed to discover the answer. The experiments finally became performable  (do to improving technology) in the 70s, and the results were decisively against "hidden variables". The probabilities in QM are real, and truly unpredictable.

So it would appear that if we are Fated to follow some path, that Fate works outside the laws of physics (a possibility that is not ruled out, or even limited, by the outcomes of these experiments).
Title: Re: Fate -- Fact or Fiction?
Post by Three Hands on Nov 17th, 2004, 4:49am
I personally have some mixed views on fate, based partly on some limited grasp of science, but mostly on thinking about the consequences of certain things. However, these are basically beliefs, and probably aren't actual fact...

Firstly, I make the assumption that humans have free will, and so are not bound by determinism when choosing their actions, except by the limitations of what they can and cannot do. Other, non-living, things (and yes, I am leavin a blurred boundary over where things with free will end, and where things which are determined begin) must, by contrast, follow deterministic laws, as shown by physics, etc. However, they can be acted upon by agents with free will, and so are, essentially, fated to follow a given path UNLESS some free agent changes the path it follows, however insignificantly. This, therefore, means that I accept that the Earth is subject to the fate of rotating on its axis at a given speed while orbitting the Sun, etc. - all dependent on physical laws - unless some free agent can alter this in any way. Free agents, on the other hand, are not subject to fate except by things they cannot change, such as the deterioration of their body/suffering the effects of illnesses they inherit, etc. hence we are fated to die unless we can change this.

However, when it comes to time travel, I teake the view that, once an event has happened, or is known for certain to happen, then it must happen by necessity within that universe. Any changes to time, therefore, must either be superficial changes which affect only details which no-one knew about, or changes to a different universe, where the change occurs in its history as at least one factor which makes it different from this one. Hence, it is not solely time travel in those instances, but also travelling to a different universe.

I'll admit that quite a lot of this is open to attack, but then, as I said, this is only what I currently think is most likely as an explanation of whether fate exists or not.
Title: Re: Fate -- Fact or Fiction?
Post by John_Gaughan on Nov 17th, 2004, 7:44am
If you have a computer program, and you give it the same inputs, it will produce the same outputs. This includes hidden inputs such as pseudorandom numbers, hardware inputs (e.g. a power plant monitoring system that reads temperatures and fuel status), etc., not just user input (what buttons you push).

When I talk about choice, I do not mean an "if" statement. I mean AI. As AI learns, it stores information in a database so it knows it when it needs to make another decision. However, that database is also input (it is external to the program code).
Title: Re: Fate -- Fact or Fiction?
Post by rmsgrey on Nov 17th, 2004, 9:23am

on 11/17/04 at 07:44:29, John_Gaughan wrote:
If you have a computer program, and you give it the same inputs, it will produce the same outputs. This includes hidden inputs such as pseudorandom numbers, hardware inputs (e.g. a power plant monitoring system that reads temperatures and fuel status), etc., not just user input (what buttons you push).


Not necessarily... I recently ran off a simple progam that processes a number of data files in parallel and produces a condensed output. Running on a given set of data, it produced an anomalous result on one machine, which I have not been able to duplicate...

In general, real computers are subject to a cetain (very low) error rate, which will cause anomalies to occur from time to time...


As for fate/free-will/determinism, I have no facts beyond the apparent randomness of quantum effects, and believe strongly that, short of time travel, there is no way to know what would have happened had things gone differently, so no way  to test for fate...

I do have a number of tentative opinions, but since that's not what's wanted, I'll keep them to myself, apart from observing that it can never be the wrong decision to assume one has free will.
Title: Re: Fate -- Fact or Fiction?
Post by Icarus on Nov 17th, 2004, 6:43pm
For the most part, even that anomalous behavior of your program can be attributed to "input", except that this input is most likely radiation interacting with your computer. Modern chip design is so compact that even small amounts of radiation can cause signals to jump between circuits or flip bits in memory. To combat this, a certain amount of error checking is performed to catch and correct these problems. But occasionally some flip through. Errors caused by radiation, or other input from the computer's environment does not really gainsay what John is saying. It is just that the concept of input into the system needs to be broadened to cover this.

On the other hand, occasionally quantum fluctuation also causes these errors. (The expected end of the current continual improvement in traditional chip design is when this quantum noise overwhelms the real data - a situation which we are already approaching.) In this case, we end up with what is, as far as we  have been able to determine, real randomness, and the possibility of "free will".

______________________________________________


Some pure speculation: Most religions believe that there is something more to humans that just the physical - that everyone is possessed of a "soul" or "spirit" that is the core of our being, and guides/controls our bodies. Quantum mechanical randomness opens the door for such a non-physical influence on the physical world without violating natural laws. By controlling which of a selection of possible events occurs, spirits could influence the action of neurons in the brain, and hence control the body. By this idea, the brain is not the seat of our consciousness, but rather the interface between our spirits and bodies.
Title: Re: Fate -- Fact or Fiction?
Post by towr on Nov 18th, 2004, 12:24am

on 11/17/04 at 18:43:38, Icarus wrote:
It is just that the concept of input into the system needs to be broadened to cover this.
You could say the same thing about humans. Just call every internal process input as well. And so people would also behave exactly the same given the same input. There never will be the same input of course, as the brain is changing in bigger and smaller ways constantly, but the same can be true in computers, just a matter of complexity.


Quote:
real randomness, and the possibility of "free will".
Stochastic behaviour doesn't make us any freeer of course. Not unless you can influence which 'random' choice you make, but then it's not random anymore. (And thus there would be hidden variables underpinning QM)

I'm still wondering what we're talking about in the first place. The mind body problem is interesting enough, but what does it have to do with fate? Doesn't fate presuppose free will to begin with? I'm not sure it's an interesting question otherwise.
Title: Re: Fate -- Fact or Fiction?
Post by rmsgrey on Nov 18th, 2004, 4:25am
There are "strong" and "weak" versions of fate - the "strong" version says that every detail is set in advance (which makes free will unlikely), while the "weak" version only sets "important" or "significant" details, and in such a way that a number of scenarios count. For instance, George W Bush may have been fated to win the 2000 elections, which could have happened through the original vote, or by the proposed recount process, or, as it happened, by a mildly controversial court decision...


And some philosophers have neatly sidestepped the whole question of determinism when discussing free will by defining it as the normal outcome of our decision making proccesses, when fed accurate data, which doesn't really help discussions about fate...
Title: Re: Fate -- Fact or Fiction?
Post by h7 on Nov 19th, 2004, 7:05pm
You can also look at fate like this.
First defining free will.

What is free will?
Free will is being able to make choices. [my opinion]

But then, what makes us choose one choice over another? Why do we do things the way we do? Why are we who we are?

A very basic answer for this, is all our choices, why we're who we are is this, what makes us do the things we do. Everything depended on our childhood. Everything depends on what happened to us while we grow up. Perhap in 20 years, we'll be MUCH different from who we are now.

Everything depends on what has happened to us, if some random thing that happened when we were 5, never happened, who's to say we'll be the same now?

Looking at this, we have to look back, where did we grow up,  who were our friends, what school did we go to?
We did not decide this, but our parents (guardian) decided this for us.

Why did they do that? Basicly, the same thing that makes us do what we do. (and so on and so on, untill you get to the beginning of the universe).

EX. (Probably extremely unlikely) Every week you pass by a hotdog stand on your way to work. Usually you buy a hotdog before you cross the street to enter your workplace. Last week however you had bought a hotdog, abut nd sadly,  you received diarhea from the hotdog :(. The next time you see the hotdog stand, you say to yourself "I think I'm going to skip it today". As you cross the street you get hit by a car.

As it turns out, the brakes malfunctioned/snapped/broked at that particular time. Both end up dead.


We'll always try to do what will give us the best result, during any given circumstance.


Then we hear the story, and it turns out something like this
" 2 people have died in a car accident, due to negligents of car company"
But, as we might guess, this might never have happened if the hotdog seller didn't give the man a bad hotdog. We'll never know the cause of that bad hotdog. (Maybe the hotdog sellers had a malfunction and it wasn't keeping the hotdogs drozen) who knows?

This ends up as a web of connecting events that lead to one event. This event would probably lead to multiple other events to. (Perhaps a family watched this on the news and then decides to double check the gears on their car. Which just so happens that the brakes weren't working properly).

Now we have to think, was this fate? Can we possibly have a free will if all are decisions are already pre-decided by people who's decisions are also pre-decided.

This is a very interesting topic to talk about, but first you have to notice how deep it can really go.
Title: Re: Fate -- Fact or Fiction?
Post by Icarus on Nov 20th, 2004, 8:19am

on 11/18/04 at 00:24:47, towr wrote:
You could say the same thing about humans. Just call every internal process input as well. And so people would also behave exactly the same given the same input. There never will be the same input of course, as the brain is changing in bigger and smaller ways constantly, but the same can be true in computers, just a matter of complexity.


Yes and no. By input, I mean all interactions of the system (human, computer, whatever) with its environment. In the case or rmsgrey's computer, if the change in the one run was a result of external radiation causing a bit to flip, for instance, then I would call that "input" - this is the broadening of the concept that I was refering to: widening it from just the data you enter, to all interaction with the environment. Before the discovery of quantum mechanics, it was believed that if you had two identical systems, starting in the same state and interacting with the same interactions with the environment, the systems would always behave exactly the same, regardless of any "internal processes". Internal processes are not "input".

With quantum mechanics, this is no longer believed. The two identical systems may still produce different results because quantum mechanical laws only predict probabilities for outcomes - and testing has indicated that this probabilistic nature is inherent, rather than just an artifact of our limited knowledge.


Quote:
Stochastic behaviour doesn't make us any freeer of course. Not unless you can influence which 'random' choice you make, but then it's not random anymore. (And thus there would be hidden variables underpinning QM)


This is why I have not called the scientific side of my comments "fate" or "free will". This only addresses the more limited concept of "determinism": whether or not all of history is an inevitable result of the state of the universe at its initial creation. This only addresses the concept of "free will" - the possibility of changing the outcome of your life by making choices - in that in a deterministic universe, free will is impossible. You were unable to make any other choices than you have made, so your outcome was inevitable from the moment of creation.

In order to have free will, you must have a non-deterministic universe. QM provides us with exactly that. But this does not guarantee that free will is to be found in QM, just that the possibility arises with it. QM is not the only solution to the deterministic universe problem, either. An older solution is the one used by many religions: The physical laws we see only apply to our cosmos, but our cosmos interacts with other "planes of existance" which operate under different principles, and this interaction allows for non-determistic elements to slip in. (Don't dismiss this as "religion", not "science" - because these other planes do interact with this one, this idea is potentially testable, which brings it handily within the realm of scientific investigation.)


Quote:
I'm still wondering what we're talking about in the first place. The mind body problem is interesting enough, but what does it have to do with fate? Doesn't fate presuppose free will to begin with? I'm not sure it's an interesting question otherwise.


John was interested in scientific approaches to the question of fate. Determinism is the closest science comes to it that I am aware of.
Title: Re: Fate -- Fact or Fiction?
Post by towr on Nov 21st, 2004, 7:21am

on 11/20/04 at 08:19:16, Icarus wrote:
This only addresses the concept of "free will" - the possibility of changing the outcome of your life by making choices
There are other interpretations of free will, though. It doesn't have to depend on the outcome for one; but perhaps the way to arrive at a decision.
'Free' is ambiguous enough in itself.


Quote:
John was interested in scientific approaches to the question of fate. Determinism is the closest science comes to it that I am aware of.
I'm still wondering what the question is. What is fate? Is it simply inevitability?
Title: Re: Fate -- Fact or Fiction?
Post by Icarus on Nov 21st, 2004, 11:13am

on 11/21/04 at 07:21:54, towr wrote:
I'm still wondering what the question is. What is fate? Is it simply inevitability?


This is why determinism is the closest science has approached the question of fate; it is a well-defined (and therefore testable) concept. Fate is not.
Title: Re: Fate -- Fact or Fiction?
Post by towr on Nov 21st, 2004, 1:47pm
Determinism may be well-defined, but I dispute that it is testible. Even how quantumeffects turn out may be 'set in stone', so to speak. Similar to how random numbers your computer gives are predetermined (whether by pseudo random number generator, or from tables of numbers from a casino). There is no way to tell the difference. At most you can note that there isn't a pattern (or doesn't appear to be one).
Title: Re: Fate -- Fact or Fiction?
Post by Icarus on Nov 21st, 2004, 3:08pm
No - that is a separate question from determinism. "Determinism" is the idea that physical law completely determines the course of the history of the universe. That the universe is essentially one gigantic Rube Goldberg device that once set in motion will unswervingly follow a path without any chance for deviation.

As I have said above, some rather ingenious experiments indicate that the probabilistic nature of QM is intrinsic, rather than arising simply because of the limitations of our knowledge. That is, physical law does not guarantee any particular outcome.

Now, it may be that in fact all the outcomes are fixed, but if so, they are fixed in an unpredictable fashion - not by repeatable principle. This is what I would call "fate".

Think of the universe as being a real number, and we are moving along the digits with time. "Determinism" is the claim that the number is rational: its digits following a simple pattern. "Fate", or what you described, is the claim that the number was picked beforehand. This may be true, but we have no way of knowing, because all we can know about is what the digits are as they pass.
Title: Re: Fate -- Fact or Fiction?
Post by towr on Nov 22nd, 2004, 12:57am

on 11/21/04 at 15:08:27, Icarus wrote:
No - that is a separate question from determinism. "Determinism" is the idea that physical law completely determines the course of the history of the universe. That the universe is essentially one gigantic Rube Goldberg device that once set in motion will unswervingly follow a path without any chance for deviation.
To bad we can't start it over and see if it does exactly the same thing :P
Though of course even that would only proof it can do the exact same thing twice, not that it must do the same thing twice.


Quote:
Think of the universe as being a real number, and we are moving along the digits with time. "Determinism" is the claim that the number is rational: its digits following a simple pattern. "Fate", or what you described, is the claim that the number was picked beforehand. This may be true, but we have no way of knowing, because all we can know about is what the digits are as they pass.
Interesting analogy, since the first n numbers of a real number always comprise a rational number (some number divided by some power of ten)  ::)

There is however another approach to handling this question by first exploring the concepts itself. After all, if the concepts are logically inconsistent they can't be true.
Title: Re: Fate -- Fact or Fiction?
Post by rmsgrey on Nov 22nd, 2004, 5:11am
If running universe 2.0 came up with exactly the same results, then a) it strongly argues in favour of fate since the probability of getting the same results twice without some sort of controlling factor is pretty minimal. Of course, if you do, then the chances are that we're inside a recursive copy ourselves... (every copy will make an identical copy, but there will only be one original)

Going right back to the original post: criminals claiming they have no choice but to commit their crimes (aside from the Minority Report issues) deserve to run into a judge who claims he has no choie but to give them a sentence of maximum severity...
Title: Re: Fate -- Fact or Fiction?
Post by John_Gaughan on Nov 22nd, 2004, 4:42pm
Some of you wonder what the question is or what I intended. I just wanted to hear what you guys think about that topic. I read what y'all write and I find it interesting.

Determinism was what I was getting at with my question, but I did not use that specific word. I like Icarus' definition. Rube Goldberg... that reminds me of some old DOS games where you had to set up various puzzles, click a button, and see if the machine works. Yeah, that was it -- The Incredible Machine. I "invested" many hours into that game ;D
Title: Re: Fate -- Fact or Fiction?
Post by rmsgrey on Nov 23rd, 2004, 4:44am
Speaking of incredible machines, one of the best UK TV advertisements in recent years consisted of some (most? all?) of the parts of a car carefully laid out in a row (in advance) and the first component given a gentle push, then each component in turn nudging the next along the whole row in such a way that it repeatedly appeared to be in danger of stopping entirely.


As for fate (in the hopes of appearing to be on topic), for philosophical reasons, I prefer to believe in the concept of meaningful choice - that is that when we consciously make a decision, having taken ino account as much of the information available to us as is appropriate, firstly we do genuinely make a choice - we aren't just puppets - and secondly the consequences are related in a loosely predictable way to our decisions and intentions. So, for example, the population of the USA collectively decided to re-elect Bush (either because they decided after due consideration that he was the better choice for president, or because they decided not to invest the time and energy in making an informed decision and just voted for him anyway), and now the whole world has to live with the consequences...
Title: Re: Fate -- Fact or Fiction?
Post by John_Gaughan on Nov 23rd, 2004, 8:10pm
I feel that nothing but the cruelty of the Universe could have elected that monster for another four years.
Title: Re: Fate -- Fact or Fiction?
Post by rmsgrey on Nov 24th, 2004, 5:37am
I'm refusing to gloat until after our next elections,when we discover whether Toady Blair will still be backing GWB up...
Title: Re: Fate -- Fact or Fiction?
Post by honeyearnest on Dec 8th, 2004, 6:07pm
:ok about criminals not being able to control what they do-i think that is sometimes true.becuz i believe in reincarnation and i think that some lifes you are the victim in others you are the doer.i believe in fate and that everything happens for a reason.
and if say the person has a mental problem i feel they cannot fully control there actions.i think that everyone is in the percise place at the right moment.o
Title: Re: Fate -- Fact or Fiction?
Post by Icarus on Dec 8th, 2004, 8:18pm
Ahh, but John states right at the start:

Quote:
I am not interested in opinions, I am more interested in approaching this question from an objective, scientific viewpoint.
Title: Re: Fate -- Fact or Fiction?
Post by rmsgrey on Dec 9th, 2004, 8:04am

on 12/08/04 at 18:07:58, honeyearnest wrote:
:ok about criminals not being able to control what they do-i think that is sometimes true.becuz i believe in reincarnation and i think that some lifes you are the victim in others you are the doer.i believe in fate and that everything happens for a reason.
and if say the person has a mental problem i feel they cannot fully control there actions.i think that everyone is in the percise place at the right moment.o

Hi Honey.

As Icarus said, we're trying to restrict ourselves to a fairly hard-headed scientific approach rather than matters of opinion in this thread.

So to try and bridge the gap: what testable consequences could reincarnation with Karma have?
Title: Re: Fate -- Fact or Fiction?
Post by towr on Dec 9th, 2004, 8:43am

on 12/09/04 at 08:04:21, rmsgrey wrote:
So to try and bridge the gap: what testable consequences could reincarnation with Karma have?
Accurate recall of events/objects in a previous life which you could not have gained knowledge of in this life. And as far as Karma is concerned whether your kind of behaviour then correlates with your conditions now.
It is quite testible when you find someone who claims to have memories of a past life, invariable it turns out bogus. I mean, how many people could have been Napoleon or Cleopatra in a previous life? ::)
(In all fairness, it depends on you view of reincarnation, there needn't be a one-on-one mapping)
Title: Re: Fate -- Fact or Fiction?
Post by rmsgrey on Dec 9th, 2004, 9:30am
And you needn't have actually been Napoleon or Cleopatra - merely someone who believed they were (or by now someone who was regressed to someone who believed they were)
Title: Re: Fate -- Fact or Fiction?
Post by OnlyAnEgg on Dec 23rd, 2004, 6:40am
[quote author=rmsgrey link=board=truth;num=1100633181;start=0#18 date=11/23/04 at 04:44:09]Speaking of incredible machines, one of the best UK TV advertisements in recent years consisted of some (most? all?) of the parts of a car carefully laid out in a row (in advance) and the first component given a gentle push, then each component in turn nudging the next along the whole row in such a way that it repeatedly appeared to be in danger of stopping entirely.


  It's truly entertaining, and may be an excellent example of pure mechanical determinism.  I was given the site as "Amazing Honda Ad", and the URL is:

http://www.ebaumsworld.com/honda-ad.html

 This models quite nicely the Newtonian "clockwork" view of the universe, which I liked as a pre-teenager.  A few decades and many surprises later, I now have far more respect for the probabilistic model for the physical universe.  Just because the probability of an event is quite high (0.998 or so) doesn't make it certain, but you won't find me betting against it.  Still, I know now about the Law of Perversity of the Universe, and give it all due respect.

 I'm enjoying this thread immensely, and trying to dredge up old training & connections the Jesuits gave me in the 60's.  Whew!

OnlyAnEgg
Title: Re: Fate -- Fact or Fiction?
Post by spanchap on Mar 25th, 2007, 6:14pm
Any action taken by a human being is either a) because of genes/past conditioning or b) inspite of genes/past conditioning or c) a combination of a and b.

If it is (a), then free will is illusory. If it is (b), it is even more scary - somebody/something other than you (fate/chance?) is making you choose that action since nothing in your genes or your past conditioning would suggest that you would choose that action. In essence something that is not "you" (i.e., something that is over and beyond a combination of your past conditioning [skills, education, memories, upbringing etc.] and genes) is making the decision.

Either which way there is not much going for free will. Either there is no free will or at best there is "constrained" free will (governed by chance) in which case it is not exactly "free" will.
Title: Re: Fate -- Fact or Fiction?
Post by Icarus on Mar 25th, 2007, 7:32pm
And what makes you claim that the "somebody/something" is "other than you"? And how do you support your claim that "genes/past conditioning" is contrary to free will? This would only be the case if their action was completely deterministic, which by our best evidence is not true.
Title: Re: Fate -- Fact or Fiction?
Post by towr on Mar 26th, 2007, 1:27am
Our best evidence shows that our behaviour is at least in part determined by genetic factors and past experience (rearing, etc). And obviously our behaviour is constrained, we can't just will ourselves to fly (well, ok it's an assumption; the universe might be vastly different then we experienced it so far. Maybe we are in the matrix. But let's assume not).

There is still room for a speck of free will, it seems. Our environment doesn't determine how we behave; our internal state has some say in it too. But what is the nature of our internal state?
One might assume some soul/spirit, a mental entity free of the physical world; and let's ignore how the physical interaction with the body is. Now what would we require to have a free will? That I have a free will.
There has to be something that can be the 'I', something constant (though also changing). There has to be a sort of behaviour to this mental entity that makes it identifiable as me, rather than random spasmic behaviour. It needn't entirely be deterministic though, it may be a stochastic behaviour. But it will in a sense have to be predictable in so far as I am the one willing an action. Because if the action is a random impulse you can't rightly say it was willed. In fact I'd go as far to say that the more my will plays a role, the more deterministic the action has to be. There mustn't be a random component to it, it must be solely me that determines it.
Any randomness in my behaviour should come only via an input, and not from within the core me. So at the core I'd say I'd have to be deterministic to have a real will. And it will be free in the sense that it is solely determined by me (though based on input from the physical world).
Title: Re: Fate -- Fact or Fiction?
Post by spanchap on Mar 26th, 2007, 4:09pm

on 03/25/07 at 19:32:12, Icarus wrote:
And what makes you claim that the "somebody/something" is "other than you"? And how do you support your claim that "genes/past conditioning" is contrary to free will? This would only be the case if their action was completely deterministic, which by our best evidence is not true.


I am assuming that "me" is a combination of all the past experiences/conditioning and genes. Can you think of anything else that would constitute "me"? In essence, I am arguing that my "identity" (what I call "me") HAS to be based on the past.  Now, you could say that is an assumption and not something that is undoubtably axiomatic. But I find it hard to pinpoint "who I am" apart from my experiences/conditioning/memory etc and genes.  If there is something other than my past conditioning and genes that is "me", then it has to be something that is "untainted" by my genetic tendencies or conditioning. If that untainted "me" is acting through me, it is not exactly "my" free will - it is an extraneous "free will" acting through me.

I am not arguing for determinism. My only assertion is that there is no "individual free" will. If there is a "free will", it is nonindividualistic and non specific to the individual who is thinking that it is his free will that is leading to an action.  The other scenario is that the "free" will is tainted by my past conditioning and genes and is not actually "free".
Title: Re: Fate -- Fact or Fiction?
Post by Three Hands on Mar 26th, 2007, 4:15pm
Is your personality what dictates how you act, or is how you act what describes your personality?
Title: Re: Fate -- Fact or Fiction?
Post by spanchap on Mar 26th, 2007, 4:30pm

on 03/26/07 at 16:15:04, Three Hands wrote:
Is your personality what dictates how you act, or is how you act what describes your personality?


Actually both.

Action = f (Past Conditioning, Genes, External Stimuli)

Personality/Identity = f(Past Conditioning, Genes).  Any action you take immediately becomes part (however miniscule) of your identity/personality

To summarize my earlier points, assume (this has to be an assumption and it is not clearly apparent that it could be considered axiomatic) that

Action = f (Past Conditioning, Genes, External Stimuli)

If Action is based on the first two factors, it is not "free" and if it is based on the last factor (inspite of the first two factors and not because of the first two factors), it is not really "my" free will.

I know that the above scheme is in some sense indefensible as it assumes a lot about the impetus for an action and what constitutes "me" - but at the least one can say that this is one plausible view of free will as it relates to our actions among many other plausible views.
Title: Re: Fate -- Fact or Fiction?
Post by JiNbOtAk on Mar 26th, 2007, 9:22pm
Just a question, since most people refer to free will one way or another in their post, what exactly is free will ? How do you define it ?
Title: Re: Fate -- Fact or Fiction?
Post by ThudanBlunder on Mar 27th, 2007, 12:29am

on 03/26/07 at 21:22:54, JiNbOtAk wrote:
Just a question, since most people refer to free will one way or another in their post, what exactly is free will ? How do you define it ?

Although free to do so, they haven't decided yet.   :D
Title: Re: Fate -- Fact or Fiction?
Post by towr on Mar 27th, 2007, 1:11am

on 03/26/07 at 21:22:54, JiNbOtAk wrote:
Just a question, since most people refer to free will one way or another in their post, what exactly is free will ? How do you define it ?
Like many concepts there can't be a definition. It's meaning is determined by languages-games (http://users.california.com/~rathbone/word.htm).
Title: Re: Fate -- Fact or Fiction?
Post by spanchap on Mar 27th, 2007, 10:11am

on 03/26/07 at 21:22:54, JiNbOtAk wrote:
Just a question, since most people refer to free will one way or another in their post, what exactly is free will ? How do you define it ?


Well one definition could be: " Free Will" is the exercise of choice that is not artificially constrained by the individual's conditioning or genes.

But the probability of anybody agreeing 100% with the above definition is slimmer than the probability of the Knicks winning the NBA championship this year :P
Title: Re: Fate -- Fact or Fiction?
Post by Three Hands on Mar 27th, 2007, 1:32pm
The definition of free will largely depends on what your understanding of "free" is. "Will" is generally seen as something like "Power to affect change", in the sense that without will, change cannot be affected. Since humans can be said to affect change, most agree that humans are beings with will. The question then becomes whether humans are free in the exercising of their will, or whether they follow some systematic approach, or some complex set of rules, or act entirely randomly.

Different people have different ideas about what freedom is - largely based around what kind of physical/natural constraints we should expect "free" to have. For example, one constraint is to do with whether you could affect change if you were transported back in time - could you kill your grandfather?

For simplicity, one feature of free will would be, in everyday, normal circumstances (as in actions you take are not about to cause temporal paradoxes or similar headaches), that you were capable of acting in a different manner, but you chose (rather than were randomly determined) to act in a given way. Hence, if the same event occurred again, with exactly the same conditions, that you could choose to act in a different way.

Spanchap, in response to your view on personality and actions, if your actions are generated by a function of your personality and external stimuli, then are incorporated into your personality, then isn't your personality merely being affected by external stimuli, rather than your actions? In that sense, where is any freedom gained? - you end up instead as something like a complex state-changing machine, where what determines the outcome is what state the machine starts in (your genes) and what has been inputted into the machine (past experience). In that sense, you could not act in a different way, unless there is some other factor which is involved in forming your actions which allows for choice.

My own answer to the question I posed in my previous post is that how you act is what describes your personality, but I take a reasonably strong view of what "free" means, and believe that we are free. I could be entirely wrong, however.
Title: Re: Fate -- Fact or Fiction?
Post by spanchap on Mar 27th, 2007, 1:56pm

on 03/27/07 at 13:32:10, Three Hands wrote:
In that sense, where is any freedom gained? - you end up instead as something like a complex state-changing machine, where what determines the outcome is what state the machine starts in (your genes) and what has been inputted into the machine (past experience). In that sense, you could not act in a different way, unless there is some other factor which is involved in forming your actions which allows for choice.


You are absolutely right in concluding that the scheme I laid out is similar to a complex state-changing machine where in essence "free"dom is non existent.  Even though I had the "illusion" of being able to choose from a discrete set of options, given exactly the same situation to the minutest detail, I could not at the time I made the choice have behaved any differently.  If I did then there is randomness involved which is not something that is "me" which goes back to my (debatable and ungrounded) assertion that either there is no "free" will or if there is "free" will then it is not personal free will. The randomness which crystallizes the action is coming from without and not within and so "I" cannot take credit for that.

One digression into what is potentially non scientific and in the realm of opinions. I have a strong suspicion that my past and my view of the future using the past as a lens, almost always influences the decision I take in the present. If somebody who had a different past where presented the same situation, he/she would almost certainly react differently.  This suggests that the choice may be illusion.

In any case, one would never know as none of these hypotheses is testable.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
Title: Re: Fate -- Fact or Fiction?
Post by rmsgrey on Mar 28th, 2007, 6:48am
An interesting alternate approach to free will:

Consider a variation on Pascal's Wager, replacing "God" with "Free Will":

If Free Will exists and I believe in it, then I'm right.
If Free Will exists and I don't believe in it, then I'm wrong.
If Free Will doesn't exist, then I have no choice in what I believe, so there's no credit or blame for getting it right (no more than we'd praise a clock for showing the correct time or censure it for being wrong - we'd credit or blame the manufacturers)

So if I have a choice in what to believe about Free Will, I should believe in it.


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